The first time the UFC visited the island was in 2014, with an event headlined by Tarec Saffiedine and Hyun Gyu Lim. Amazingly, 15 of 20 fighters featured on that card were making their UFC debuts that night. Fortunately for us, there’s a bit more experience on show this Saturday, with just 5 of the 24 fighters in action making their UFC debuts this time around.

Here’s a look at the recent results of the two women in Saturday’s main event:

There’s not much green in this graphic. Although both women have been relatively active as of late, each fighting 3 times since March 2016, they have recorded just one victory between them in 6 combined fights in that timeframe.

Holm is coming off three consecutive defeats, against Miesha Tate, Valentina Shevchenko and Germaine de Randamie. Before this skid, which includes two UFC title fights, Holly Holm had a professional MMA record of 10-0.

Correia is on a slightly better run of form at the moment, rebounding from a split-decision loss to Raquel Pennington with a split-decision win over Jessica Eye, before fighting to a majority draw with Marion Reneau in March. The judges have not unanimously agreed on the result of any of Correia’s last 3 fights. In fact, they haven’t reached a consensus in 4 out of Correia’s 5 UFC decisions.

Here’s a look at how these two fighters fared when competing against common opponents shared throughout their careers. On the left of the graphic, you’ll see how Holm fared against any shared opponents, and on the right, you’ll see Correia’s results against the same women.

Holm comes out well on top in this comparison, getting the better of all 3 shared opponents (all 3 wins coming in 2015), whilst Correia failed to defeat any of them. That said, these 3 opponents are actually the only women Correia has failed to beat throughout her 13-fight professional MMA career.

The Dwyer Score

Each event I calculate a ‘Dwyer Score’ for the card. It’s a simple way of giving a numeric value to the momentum of any one event. I do this by assigning a figure to each fighter’s current streak; a fighter on a five-fight winning streak contributes +5 to an event’s score, whilst a fighter on a two-fight losing streak contributes -2 to the score. No Contests, Draws, or bouts with other promotions set your streak to 0. When you tally up the scores for every fighter on a card (only counting UFC fights), you get a total which gives you an idea of the combined momentum of fighters heading into a specific event. Normally, I display some of the highest scores in UFC history on the right here, but this time I’ve included a list of some of the lowest-scoring events of all time, to help give some context to this score.

UFC Fight Night 111: Holm vs. Correia has a Dwyer Score of -14. This ranks in 401st place out of the UFC’s 401 events since 1993.

Earlier this year, the B.J. Penn-Yair Rodríguez event posted a score of -13, equaling the previous all-time low set by the Shogun Rua-Brandon Vera event in 2012. This Saturday’s event has gone one better, claiming the sole record for itself.

Here’s a look at how this score compares to other events’ scores over the past year:

This score is well beneath the average of +12 for events in the last year, as well as the average score of +6.5 for strictly Fight Night events. This is one of six events to have posted a negative Dwyer Score in the last 12 months.

Let’s take a look at exactly how this score breaks down:

The highest individual contributors to this event’s score are Dong Hyun Kim and Colby Covington (both +3), who coincidentally happen to be facing each other on Saturday. Marcin Tybura and Li Jingliang are both just behind on +2.

Ignoring the momentum of fighters on this card, it’s not a bad line up at all. We have 3 former UFC champions, 1 former title contender and a total of 8 fighters who have headlined UFC events in the past- they’re just not necessarily in the best of form at the moment. Here’s hoping we have one of those events that unexpectedly delivers on Saturday.

About the Author:

Nick Dwyer.
Nick is a 27-year-old MMA writer who has been part of #TeamEverlast for 2 years now, contributing weekly 'Dwyer Score' columns as well as statistical analyses and fighter interviews. Follow Nick on Twitter at @NickDwyerMMA.